


I Died For Beauty

by Patria



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patria/pseuds/Patria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire awakens after being executed next to Enjolras. After he realizes that he is dead, he tries to carry on with his (after)life, despite being invisible and painfully alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Orestes and Pylades

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perplexingly.tumblr.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=perplexingly.tumblr.com).



> I died for beauty, but was scarce  
> Adjusted in the tomb,  
> When one who died for truth was lain  
> In an adjoining room.
> 
> He questioned softly why I failed?  
> "For beauty," I replied.  
> "And I for truth, -- the two are one;  
> We brethren are," he said.
> 
> And so, as kinsmen met a night,  
> We talked between the rooms,  
> Until the moss had reached our lips,  
> And covered up our names.
> 
> \-- "I died for beauty, but was scarce" by Emily Dickinson

I slept in my old bed for a while, just because I didn’t know what else to do. The landlord started renting it again so I decided to find a new place to stumble home to. No luck yet. I just walk around most of the time. I’m not really going anywhere. I guess I’m just vaguely hoping I’ll see someone I know. Most nights recently, I’ve sat up in the corner of the cafe and rested my head against the hardness of the wall. The place is so quiet now. I’m not even sure if I need to sleep, but I do it out of habit and to pass the time. Wine still does its job, which is a small victory, but there’s no one to see come and go. It’s just me.

Being dead is a lot like being alive, except everyone ignores you. So for me it’s exactly like being alive. I don’t feel the cold anymore, which is good because I don’t have a coat. Whoever decided that we carry on wearing whatever we died in is an asshole. This shirt is too big and now it’s full of bullet holes. No one tells you how to die. No one sits you down and says “you’re dead and I’m God and here’s how things work around here.” I didn’t even know I was dead at first. You don’t realize what’s going on when it first happens. It’s just like waking up normally. Well, it may not be normal for most people to wake up sprawled across a cafe floor, but that’s a pretty normal bed by my standards. That’s why I didn’t put two and two together. I just woke up, feeling like shit, and I noticed how quiet everything was. I recognized the cafe was a mess and nothing was making a sound. So I stood up and looked toward the window, and that’s when I noticed the blood on the floor. And the walls. And the tables and chairs and I got scared. I got really scared because I knew what that meant. I didn’t want to go to the window, but I did anyway.

The boot was the first thing I saw, barely sticking up into the frame of the window. I had never seen the bottoms of his boots before. They were clean and well taken care of, but were worn down to wood on the heels and in need of repair. He always did walk on his heels. I think he liked to hear them click on the street. The boot led to a foot, and the foot to a leg and I already could feel my throat closing. The leg became a hip, wrapped in an empty gun belt, and beyond that, a torso. I tried not to focus on the holes in his waistcoat, their fabric edges a little darker red than the rest, and instead moved to his arm, then his hand, still clutching that flag. Always clutching that flag. It ran down the wall like a river to curl between his still fingers in little eddies. Then there was his face. Oh his face. Death hadn’t touched it yet, and he still wore a proud pinkish tint on his skin. His lips still curled up just a little on one side and his eyes laid open, staring onto the street. I watched a drop of blood escape from his chest to run down his neck to his face, then fall from a blonde curl to join the river he had already created on the street below.

I could feel the muscles in my face twist into horrible new shapes. How could he end while I last? Where is his beloved justice in that? I felt the tears on my face before I ever knew I was crying them, fell to my knees upon the realization of my grief. That’s when I noticed the dark shape lying next to me. A mop of black hair, stubble on the chin, a green vest and a too-big shirt. It was me. I was kneeling next to my own broken, lifeless form.

“Oh.” I mumbled. I was far less majestic in death. My limbs were twisted into impossible angles, my mouth hung open and blood sat inside it like a stagnant pond. My face already looked bloated and pale and the dark circles under my eyes seemed more pronounced that I remembered. My face was pressed against the wooden floor, with a string of blood running from my nose like snot. One of my eyes was half closed, while the other seemed to be opened too widely for a corpse. I thought about closing them, but my body was too repulsive for even me to want to touch it. The skin around my entry wounds was already purple and bruised. The exit wounds looked even worse.

They shot me in the neck.   
Those fuckers shot me in the neck.

I guess it’s fitting. They placed each bullet in Enjolras’s chest carefully, like they were adding to his masterpiece or at least trying not to ruin it, but I just got sprayed with the leftovers. In the neck. Enjolras was martyred. I’m just dead. We die like we live.

I didn’t cry for a long time, sitting on the floor of the cafe with my back resting on the wall next to my body. I just sat there, trying to remember the details of what had happened. It was fuzzy, and not just because of the whole dying thing. I had gotten drunk and passed out the night before. I slept through the battle. I slept through Enjolras’s final battle. The guilt of it tore through my chest. I know that my presence wouldn’t have changed anything — I was just one person and not much of a marksman at that — but I should have been there with the others. At the very least I could have been a shield.

I must have been in shock though, because despite all my guilt and sadness, my body refused to cry. I just sat there, thinking. At one point, I looked down to my right hand and was reminded of that last moment. I asked permission to die. It’s not surprising that Enjolras had no patience with me in life. What kind of man asks permission to die? Well I did. But Enjolras just smiled and grasped my hand and I wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t afraid so neither was I because, wherever we were going, we were going there together. I was wrong about that. Big surprise. I traced the place in my hand where his had pressed. Why couldn’t it have all just gone black? My last memory was his hand in mine. If there was a God, he would have let that be the end of all things.

After sitting in the cafe for what felt like hours, I was reminded of something Joly had mentioned in passing, about how all the blood in a corpse flows to the lowest point on the body and you can tell the position a body was left in because it creates this deep, purple bruising. Enjolras’s head was the lowest part of his body when he was upside down like that. His face would be bruised. I had to get him inside.

I always imagined that ghosts (I guess that’s what I am) would just sort of pass through anything they tried to grab, like their hands weren’t solid. I reached out of the cafe window and hooked my arms around Enjolras’s unmoving chest. I didn’t pass through him. It turns out being a ghost is just like being really really weak. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t budge him. I couldn’t even lift the flag from his hand. I was useless. Not surprisingly. The people came out of their homes to be horrified by the spectacle of our destruction, and there was Enjolras, hanging like some horrible beautiful angel: a ship’s figurehead, the emblem of the fall. At first I resented them. I wanted to tell them what cowards they were to desert us, to desert Enjolras, the man who was fighting for them. I spit from the window toward them. It was the only thing I could think to do. But as it hit the ground and was ignored, I thought of him. He wouldn’t have been angry. He was fighting for those living in fear. He was their angel, and angels don’t ask what you can give them in return. Madame Huchloup, the owner of the cafe, stood beneath the window, looking up. At first I thought she was looking at me, but I realized she was looking at Enjolras with these fat tears rolling down her cheeks. She had always liked him. Who wouldn’t?

She wiped angrily at her tears and moved to the cafe door, now splintered by bullets. I heard her footsteps on the stairs below and backed as far into the corner as I could. Not like she’d even know I was there. She had sent for a few men from the town to move Enjolras’s body and when she turned the corner into the room, she let out an audible wail. “I know.” I thought to myself. “I know. He was glorious.” But her eyes were fixed on my crumpled shape. She moved over to me, with her lips shaking and tears flowing from her eyes and nose.

“You drunken fool,” she whispered as she knelt next to me. She placed a hand on my cheek. “I had hoped you’d make it out.” I walked up slowly behind her and put my hand on her shoulder. She didn’t react at all, she just gently put her hand up to close my eyes and used her sleeve to wipe the blood from my nose and mouth. She straightened out my limbs, kissed her hand then pressed it to my forehead. She whispered, “The things we do for love.” Her eyes moved to the window and I felt my lips curling up into an involuntary smile. Of course she knew. And I thought I had been so subtle.

That’s when the men arrived to carry us away. They hauled Enjolras back through the window and I managed to run my fingers through his hair as he passed. The carried my body out after and I followed. We all were lined up on the ground floor of the wine shop. Me, Enjolras, Combeferre, Jehan, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Joly, Bossuet, Feuilly, Gavroche, and that girl who was always with Marius. I never really knew her, yet here was her corpse next to mine. Marius’s body was missing, which made me wonder if he had fallen in some hidden corner and had yet t be found. I didn’t have much hope that he had survived. I moved down the line, placing my hand on the chest of each of my fallen friends, when the inspector walked in. The spy from the night before. I’m not sure how he lived, as I thought the other “volunteer” had killed him. Anger and hatred flared in my blood and I considered attacking him but I knew he wouldn’t feel it so I didn’t bother. He knelt, eyes watery, next to Gavroche and pinned a medal to his chest. Nice gesture. Too bad he’s already dead. I leaned forward to look closer and recognized it was a Legion of Honor medal. This was a medal that had been issued to him by the emperor, and he gave it to a boy he considered a traitor, to ensure gavroche would be buried with honor. Sometimes I question my cynicism. This wasn’t one of those times. Sorry, inspector, but this half-hearted attempt to quell your own guilt comes too little too late.

I don’t know where Enjolras is. I don’t know why he didn’t wake up in the cafe next to me. I’m no genius and I have no idea how this whole death thing works, but it seems logical that we’d have the same experience. Of course, that's not how anything works out, ever. Things never happen like they should and this is just another one of those times. We died together, yet we aren’t together. I’m as alone as ever. Why am I surprised?


	2. Gabriel and Raphaël

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein the families bring the boys home.

The cafe has exactly 349 nails in it. I know this. I know this because I’ve counted. Twice. I take entertainment where I can get it. I spent 3 hours trying to lift a bottle off the shelf, which was a fruitless endeavor. I think it’s been three months since I died and the world carries on like always. Our deaths didn’t inspire some great uprising. At least, they haven’t yet. Wherever he is, I’m sure Enjolras is disappointed. I wonder what he’d be like now, with nothing left to fight for. I wonder if his eyes would still boil like they used to. I also have begun to wonder what his childhood was like. Was he kissed by him mother in great hurricanes of love, or was he taught by his father to keep his spine straight at all costs? Was it gentle and warm or rigid and proper? They came after the barricade fell, Enjolras’s parents. They came to bring him home.  
  
I had never tried to picture his parents, but they fit what I would have imagined if I had. His father was tall and lean and held himself the same way Enjolras did, postured without effort, and I could see the blueprints of Enjolras’s face in his father’s. Those high cheekbones, that slightly crooked nose. But his lips belonged to his mother, as did his hair. Hers was the same forest of blond curls. She had them tied up tightly to her head, like a proper lady, but a few curls escaped around her temples and I watched them trickle down her face just like his used to. They were beautiful. It’s not surprising their son was Enjolras. Anyone less would have seemed an injustice. They walked into the wine shop, where I was still sitting with my dead friends. No one had claimed any of our bodies yet. When she entered, Enjolras’s mothers face turned red with all her effort at composure, and I could see the chapped splotchy skin under her eyes from where she had been wiping too furiously at tears that had every right to fall. She moved to his corpse and grasped one if his hands.  
  
“He’s cold.” She whispered to her husband. Her voice shook a little with the carefully chosen words.  
  
“He’s dead.” Her husband replied. He was not reminding her, nor trying to explain anything. To an onlooker, it was obvious by the tremors moving throughout his chest and the vacant staring of his eyes, he was saying the phrase aloud because, until the moment he saw his son’s brokenness, he hadn’t let himself believe it was true. Mme Hucheloup walked in then, nodding in a misplaced show of respect toward the bourgeois socialites. Enjolras had never made mention of his parents being rich. I always assumed they were comfortable, but I had no idea the kind of life he had rejected. He could have dressed in all the fancy collars and gone to seven course dinners at sprawling estates. He could have been married to some pretty girl in a lavish wedding with all the important people in attendance. He could have laughed and drank and had portraits painted. Yet he died in the slums of Paris with me. Enjolras’s mother spoke to Madame Hucheloup.  
  
“Did you know my son?”  
  
“Yes,” Mme Hucheloup replied. “Enjolras was a brilliant young man.” His mother smiled.  
  
“Gabriel.” She said gently. “His name was Gabriel. He should have been called M. de Enjolras, like his father. But he was never one for titles.” You could have cut me at that moment and I don’t think I would have bled. My blood had stopped moving. I mean, my blood had literally stopped moving because I was dead, but I mean this in the figurative sense as well. I had never known Enjolras’s first name. Now I did. I didn’t want him to be dead. I hated the world without him in it, even if I wasn’t in it either.  
  
“He was a hero.” Madame Hucheloup offered, but Enjolras’s father snapped to her,  
  
“He was a boy and he let that boyishness kill him. He let himself die for nothing. H will forget this silly revolt, God willing.”  
  
Madame Hucheloup straightened up and a proud indignation spread across her features. “He was a hero” she said slowly, “to us.” Enjolras’s mother spoke up then, desperately trying to change the subject.  
  
“It’s seems so strange. He left home four years ago and I had only seen him once since. You must have known my son better than I did. These other boys,” She gestured at the rest of the bodies. “Were they his friends?”  
  
“They were his brothers as much as his friends. Combeferre on the end there, he was your son’s right hand. They were always together, planning. Next to Combeferre is Courfeyrac. If Enjolras ever laughed, it was Courfeyrac who made him do it. Then there’s Jehan Prouvaire, the gentlest soul I’ve ever known. He didn’t say much, just wandered through the streets as if he were floating. The big one is Bahorel. Tough as nails. He actually looks a sight better in death than half the times I saw him in life, with his face all bloodied from fighting. Joly’s next to him. Bahorel’s opposite in every way. He was sure he’d catch the plague one day, but he was so smart -- on his way to becoming a doctor -- and brave when it was called for. Next is Bossuet, the poor soul. Nothing good ever seemed to come his way, but he was happy all the same. Feuilly was loyal and took care of anyone he could. Right next to your son is Grantaire. He --”  
  
She stopped and looked around the room as if she was trying to listen to a sound she’d barely heard. Her next words were quieter. “He died with your boy.” Enjolras’s mother looked up towards Madame Hucheloup, tears moving down her face like serpents.  
  
“He and Gabriel died together?” Madame Hucheloup nodded. Enjolras’s mother softly brushed the hair off my forehead. “Will their mothers come for them?”  
  
“Some of them, I imagine. Some are orphans.” Madame Hucheloup’s eyes fells to Feuilly. Most of their mothers did come. Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Enjolras, Bahorel, Joly and Prouvaire were taken by their families to be buried. Bossuet, Feuilly, Gavroche, and Eponine were never claimed and therefore went into the mass graves for the poor. My sister came shortly after Enjolras was taken. She did not kneel at my side. She did not grasp my hand or cry onto my chest. She simply looked down at me and whispered,  
  
“Raphaël, my brother. Be at peace.” She left then. I assumed she didn’t have the money to bury me properly. She and I had never been close, and I didn’t blame her. She came to say goodbye. I had expected less. My body was put in the same grave as Gavroche.  
  
I saw Marius one week after the battle. He was standing in front of the cafe, his eyes transfixed on the lasting bloodstains on the street. My heart practically erupted when I saw him. I screamed his name from the window, but he didn’t move. I wondered if he had just realized he was dead. He had that way about him, of someone coping with the reality of their own demise. “Marius!” I yelled again, to no avail. I ran down to the street to greet him, ecstatic to have found some company in death.  
  
“Marius, it’s okay.” I placed my hands on his shoulders. “Being dead isn’t so bad.” He still did not move. It was as if he couldn’t see me. That’s when I noticed the sling his arm was in. His shirt was crisp and white. His coat was clean. The wounds on his face were scabbing. He was alive.  
  
I let my hands drop from his shoulders and flop to my sides like big, dead fish. Marius had survived. I half laughed in disbelief.  
  
“Of all the damn people...” I mumbled to myself. “Of course you make it out.” He moved past me then, almost knocking me over in the process. That’s another pain-in-the-ass thing about being disembodied. If someone runs into you, they’ll walk right over you. Marius went inside the cafe and sat in a chair in the upstairs.  
  
Marius is an ugly crier.  
But goddamn is he good at it.  
  
“My friends, forgive me.” He spoke to the air. _Friends is kind of a stretch._ I thought to myself. _They tolerated you._ I tried to reach him in any way I could. I started off quietly at first, talking to him calmly and pleading for him to listen hard enough to hear me, to know I was there. If anyone would have been able to sense my presence, it would have been him. As it all proved useless, I got frustrated and my pleas turned into screams.  
  
“Look at me!” I commanded. I could feel the veins jutting from my neck with the sound. I tried hitting him. I tried moving objects around him. Eventually, I got tired and sat back in a chair, just letting him get all his feelings out into the air. After a while, a girl showed up and took his hand to lead him away from the cafe. I heard him call her Cosette and my mouth dropped open in disbelief. He got his girl. Pontmercy got the girl. _**Pontmercy**_ got the girl. _Well, that settles it._ I thought as I kicked my feet up onto the table. _The world has gone crazy._


End file.
